High atop the Greenland ice sheet lies thousands of dollars of sophisticated scientific monitoring equipment key to projecting future sea level rise. Their batteries are drained and in need of repair, but a scientist charged with their care fears she can't reach the equipment because of Trump's de-facto Muslim ban.

University of Calgary doctoral student Samira Samimi, who was born in Iran but is a permanent resident of Canada, was supposed to hitch a ride to Greenland in April with other researchers on a specially equipped U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft out of upstate New York. But Trump's executive order on immigration, known as the Muslim ban, is a severe blow to her research and America's reputation in the science community.

She is one of thousands of science researchers ensnared in the sudden travel ban, which led to confusion at airports around the world and public demonstrations across the U.S. this weekend.

“I came so far, from the other side of the planet, to be free, to not fight for my rights anymore," Samimi said in an interview. "And this is like a nightmare."

“I don’t understand how in the 21st century one man can stop this science, stop it, just like that, so easily without even thinking."

Beyond Samimi's case, researchers have said Trump's order is already undermining American leadership in science and technology.

The order bans immigration for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim countries, including Iran, suspends the U.S. refugee resettlement program and indefinitely bans immigration from war-torn Syria. That means Samimi can't enter the United States to catch her flight, and alternative options to carry herself and her cargo would require as much as $100,000 in new funding.

Samimi is having trouble digesting the news — first delivered to her by the leader of her research team — that she may not be able to conduct her work because of the nationality on her passport.

“I’m just sick in my stomach. I don’t want to accept that I’m not going. I can’t do that. I just can’t,” she said.

“This is so stupid, this so doesn’t make sense.”

Researchers walking on sea ice outside the village of Qaanaaq, northwestern Greenland, on July 3, 2015.

Image: Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images

Samimi said she's been hearing of many researchers in her field and other scientific disciplines that are affected by this executive order.

“I don’t understand how in the 21st century one man can stop this science, stop it, just like that, so easily without even thinking."

Self-inflicted wound

Samimi and others are worried about the longer-term damage that the executive order may have on American scientific research and technology leadership, with some calling to boycott scientific conferences in the U.S.

“Social media is now full of people saying we should not schedule conferences in, or I am not sure I want to attend a conference in such a country," Rush Holt, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general science organization, said in an interview.

“I think it does raise serious science issues. Freedom to collaborate in person, to attend conferences in person, to communicate is a fundamental ingredient of good science. And particularly in this age of wide-ranging collaboration, geographically-speaking.”

Demonstrators brought an illuminated banner to Lindbergh field to protest Donald Trump's travel ban and the wall, this month.

Image: Frank Duenzl/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

Immigrants have long played a major role in American scientific research. According to a 2013 report from the National Science Foundation, immigrants comprised 16 percent, or 3.4 million, of all U.S. scientists and engineers. The majority of these immigrants were naturalized U.S. citizens, whereas 22 percent were permanent residents and 15 percent were temporary visa holders.

In addition to potentially discouraging talented foreign born scientists from coming to the U.S. to do their research, there may be short-term fallout in the form of scientific meetings in the U.S. and abroad that are canceled or boycotted.

The International Council for Science advocates that, when planning and conducting scientific meetings, its members "ensure that participation of scientists is free from discrimination of any kind," according to its website.

The group published a statement denouncing the immigration order and calling for it to be rescinded, saying: "The Council believes that the complex problems of our world can only be solved through international dialogue, collaboration and the sharing and exchange of ideas and research findings."

Scientific brain drain

Saeed Mehraban, an Iranian born quantum computing researcher at MIT who came here on a student visa in 2013, said Trump has damaged his vision of America as an inviting, welcoming land where one could freely pursue their scientific studies.

His adviser at MIT, Scott Aaronson, wrote an emotional blog post on Jan. 25, expressing anger over the policy that hurts students like Saeed.

"We’re talking about people who happen to have been born in Iran, who came to the US to do math and science," Aaronson wrote. "Would we rather have these young scientists here, filled with gratitude for the opportunities we’ve given them, or back in Iran filled with justified anger over our having expelled them?"

Mehraban said the executive order, and the sense among many of his fellow international students that they are no longer welcome in the U.S., could prompt a significant brain drain to other, more open countries.

Speaking of the international students who come to the U.S. for graduate training, Mehraban said, imagine if they decided not to work in America.

“It will be drastic.”

Farhad Ghorbani, who is studying for his Phd in chemistry at the University of Florida but is now stuck in Istanbul due to the travel ban, said he is now searching a different graduate program outside the U.S.

“Right now we can see there are organizations who are supporting Phd students like me, and they are trying to find a Phd position for me somewhere else in Europe or Canada,” he said in an interview. “Everyone is now thinking about an alternative like Europe or Canada,” he said, referring to researchers affected by Trump's executive order.

Samimi, too, raised the risk of a brain drain.

"Of course they’re all going to move," she said of international scientists in the U.S. "You don’t live in a country where you’re not supported and you don’t have any value as a scientist,” she said.

Samimi has some credibility when it comes to what prompts a brain drain, considering she left a repressive regime in Iran to earn graduate degrees in Canada instead.

“If they’re gonna treat the science like this, they’re gonna wind up like lots of other countries,” she said. “The brains are running away from those countries.”

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